At the Shanghai auto show: A fake Rolls-Royce?

Last week, USA TODAY's Calum McLeod chronicled his 800-mile journey from Beijing to Shanghai to attend the public days of the auto show. Here's what he found when he arrived:

Now that’s luxury -- Chinese style.

When you tire of other people, just slide into the back seat of your Geely Excellence, or simply, the GE. Draw the 360 degree curtains, snuggle deep into the massage chair, and enjoy the constellation of star-like lights in the roof. Perhaps enjoy a tipple from the drinks cabinet.

"We want you to feel like an Emperor,"says Zhang Yanyan, a quality department employee with the Chinese car maker

Geely, who was promoting this Rolls-Royce Phantom clone at the Shanghai Auto Show on Saturday. “We didn’t copy Rolls Royce, but we did study its design,” Zhang says, diplomatically, “and then we made some innovations. We want to show the world that China can build a luxury car,” she says of the GE that will sell for at least a million Chinese yuan ($146,000) when it hits the market in the next 18 months.

After just three hours at this show, the peace and privacy of that GE throne start to look tempting -- rather than just ridiculous. The sponsors predicted half a million auto fans would buy the $7.3 entrance ticket over the five days the show is open to the public. On Saturday, the first open weekend date, it seemed everybody came together. The rest of Shanghai must be empty.

Parking lots near the venue in southeast Shanghai were packed. Inside the exhibition center, the crowds were excited, sharp-elbowed but friendly – and hungry. McDonalds has a packed, hangar-like venue, with trash strewn all over the floor..

The hordes are proof of collective car fever. Every person I speak to sounds committed either to buying their first car in the next 12 months, or upgrading their existing model.. The new Panamera from Porsche attracts keen interest in one hall, but so does the less celebrated brand right opposite – the Riich range (yes, that’s a double “i”) from Chery.

Sitting inside the Riich M1, ranging from $6,270 to $8,800, Lin Chen and his wife Xu Qiaolin, both 28, are typical wannabe drivers. They will be the first in their respective families to ever get behind a wheel if they follow through with their plan to buy a car this year. Despite Shanghai’s decent public transport system, both want to ease their commute, and feel the lure of the open road on weekends. “I didn’t trust Chinese cars’ safety before, but I think they have matured, and the price is very reasonable,” says Lin.

Real estate manager Fu Zhen, 31, is trading up from his 5-year-old Volkswagen Santana. He was looking at the Roewe brand from Shanghai Automotive, which is written Rongwei in Chinese and pronounced "wrong way" in English. But no one gets the feeble, and unintentional, joke until I point it out. “Rongwei is a good name in Chinese, it means glory and gaining face,” explains Fu, who says his $1,500 per month salary puts the $30,000 Roewe 750 1/8T within range.

Elsewhere, across 30 football fields of space, there is much that would be familiar to the US auto showgoer. There are alluring models besieged by amateur photographers, countless cars being polished to remove countless handprints, trucks, buses, and hybrids too.

The Warren Buffett-invested BYD, or Build Your Dreams, makes one quarter of the world’s cell-phone batteries – and is trying hard to reach a similar proportion of hybrid car sales.. Despite the challenges here at home. “Chinese normally live in apartments, and don’t have garages, so it’s a big problem to re-charge the batteries,” admits sales assistant Patrick Zhou, 25. “But the government has promised to build public charging stations soon, and will offer buyers a $4,400 subsidy,” he says.

Liu Bo, 25, an interior designer, is tempted by BYD’s slick display, but worries that the time for plug-in electric cars has not yet come. “It’s not convenient to charge, so I guess I’d end up using gas more often,” he says. Shanghai’s time certainly seems to have arrived. BYD’s Zhou went to Chicago in January, and predicts this Shanghai show will outdo all other auto shows in three or four years. “In the US, the focus of companies is on how to save themselves. Here in China, the market is great!” he beams.

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About Chris Woodyard

Chris Woodyard is an auto writer for USA TODAY who covers all aspects of motoring. He revels in the exhaust note of a Maserati and the sharp creases of a Cadillac CTS. Chris strives to live a Porsche life on a Scion budget. More about Chris